The
Midwest, with its changing traditions, has long been considered the crossroads of North America. The many types of projectile
points suggest similar diversity in Paleoindian times.

Artifacts reflect patterns of activity in the landscape,
but caution is the byword in deciphering what they mean. That certainly
is the case with stone
tools, the most frequently found evidence from the period. Archeologists
examine the characteristics of tools as well as how they are scattered
across a region.

The primary material for tools, chert, was abundant
in the Midwest. However, few quarry workshops have been found. Near
the mouth of the Illinois River lies the Ready-Lincoln Hills site, the
region’s best known early workshop.

Because Midwestern soils and climate
act against preservation, there are few known sites where there
is evidence that animals were killed, although the Kimmswick site near
St. Louis yielded projectile points with mastodon bones. At such places,
meticulous studies of cut marks on bone–and of animal remains
that may have been deliberately buried–suggest hunting. Certainly
the midwesterners hunted many species, but the only clear evidence is
a caribou bone found at southeastern Michigan’s Holcombe Beach
site.

Residential areas are rarely documented well. No doubt
dozens, likelier hundreds, exist but few are known and even fewer may
survive into the next century.